


The Epistolary Courtship of Tom Branson

by elizajane



Series: Just a Little Love Song [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Courtship, Irish Politics, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, M/M, Masturbation, Sexual Fantasy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Why Manchester?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five weeks pass between the day Thaddeus Miles returns to Manchester and the day Tom Branson boards the train to go spend a day with him in the city. During that time, they write love letters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Miles to Branson (Letter One)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JT](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=JT).



> because he read part one and told me I won the things.

Miles’ first letter arrived in the Saturday morning post. Tearing open the envelope with his thumb, Tom thought of his own half-finished attempt, tucked away in the top drawer of his bedside table. The current draft was actually the third letter he’d started, since the previous Thursday’s eventful drive to the Grantham station. The first attempt had run to six double-sided pages of his cramped script before embarrassment had overcome him and he’d consigned the whole thing to the pot-bellied stove. The second had foundered after the first page of stilted prose when he realized he could have sent a copy to his Aunt Rachel without raising eyebrows. He’d begun the third that morning before the breakfast bell, and felt it had slightly more promise, but still felt his stomach clenching as he slipped the slightly crumpled cream envelope postmarked Manchester into his breast pocket before tucking into his porridge. The sight of his own name, “Thomas Branson,” printed across the front of the envelope in the same open, angular script in which Miles had written his own address on the back of a train timetable, sent Tom’s heart racing in a combination of fear and elation.

He carried the envelope against his chest for most of the morning before he had a chance to open the letter and read it in semi-privacy, while waiting for Lady Crawley to finish chairing the Women’s Institute meeting in the Grantham C of E social hall.

_13 April 1914_

_41-C Sparrow Close, Manchester_

_Dear Tom,_

_I can call you Tom? I never thought to ask, but certain events from this morning -- already feels like ages since I stepped onto the train -- seem to point toward our being on a first name basis. I’ll ‘fess up to the fact that when I set out on my walking tour of the Dales, you were hardly the sort of reward I had in mind! I thought a fortnight in the countryside would give me a chance to clear my lungs of the coal-thick air of the city, and my head of responsibilities at the Y. Then -- there you were! Pulling over on the road, and stepping out into the sunlight, and I rather stopped thinking for a moment or two altogether. _

_I (rashly! impetuously!) hope you aren’t having second thoughts about our friendship. I thought of little else on the train to Manchester except how soon I would have the chance to sit down at my desk and write you. I wouldn’t want you to think of me as the sort of fellow who isn’t as good as his word._

_The meeting today was intolerably tedious. The board of the YMCA here in Manchester is made up of business types, the sort of middle-aged businessmen who remind me of my father and therefore make my skin itch -- such irritation! -- even when they are saying nothing of great importance. They feel an expansive sense of benevolence toward the youth who are served by the organization, yet little understanding of their true needs. How, exactly, will twice-weekly rugby matches and prayer meetings substitute for sufficient food and a room one can afford? If any of them ever worried about making the week’s rent, I think they’ve forgotten all about it. They talk about keeping us young men out of the pubs, despite the fact that most have never been into the establishments they describe in such florid terms. (Or, indeed, they have but would never admit to it in one anothers’ company!) I bite my tongue and pretend to agree, then turn around and pursue my own subversive (dare I say “socialistic”?) plans. It’s a fairly useful arrangement, all things considered, I suppose. _

_It’s so difficult to put into words what I wish to say to you! I felt easy around you, a companionable togetherness that is hard to replace with words. My invitation for you to visit Manchester still stands, as I’d really like to pick up where we left off in the Oldsmobile at the station. I hope I speak for both of us when I say it seemed we’d hit upon something worth exploring in greater detail. _

_In the meantime -- an account of my life here at 41 Sparrow Close. 41 is a rooming house owned by a Mrs. Winstone. Mrs. W. has five boarders, all single men (I assure you no competition). Three are pursuing degrees at the University, one works as a clerk in a law office, and then there’s myself. We have common rooms on the first floor, consisting of a sitting room ( far too many doilies!) and dining room, where meals are served twice daily at seven in the morning and six in the evening. On the second and third floor are our rooms. Each boarder has their own room, though the toilet -- WC as you Brits call them -- is shared, one per floor. I’m on the third floor, looking out on an uninspiring row of dustbins and the rear view of the building behind. _

_I spend most of my time at the Y buildings, a ten minute walk from here. I’m in charge of the gym and teach several evening courses in mathematics, reading, and composition, to what the board calls “working men.” Factory workers, mostly, and some who make their living on the river. There’s a Reverend Mitchell, a Methodist, who conducts twice weekly services on Wednesdays and Sundays. I usually attend, though the tedium of his sermons really cannot be over-estimated. If it were up to me, we’d do the Lord’s work by helping the workers organize, or feeding them solid meals. But I don’t have the power yet, in the organization, to get that point across so I keep my mouth shut._

_When you visit (note I am  not allowing myself to worry you will have second thoughts) I’ll take you to the University museum. The natural history and Egyptology collections are superb (will you mind indulging my taste for dusty old relics?). I take myself there on Saturday afternoons when I’m free, for the oasis of calm. I also know of one or two night clubs which wouldn’t turn us away, though I hear London is quite the destination if night clubs are your kind of thing. To be honest, I’ve only ventured out on rare occasions. My position at the Y being what it is, I don’t want to jeopardize the programs I’m hoping to put in place, and I doubt the old stuff-shirts on the board would be pleased about my romantic interests (despite the fact I have strong suspicions one or two of them share my taste!). _

_Damn -- there’s the clock striking eleven! I’ve got to stop writing before I spill over onto the eighth page of this letter. Have I scared you away yet? I hope not. I know I’ve spent most of this letter on idle chit chat, but I hope you realize I’m just trying (in my own clumsy way!) to share more of myself with you. I hope you’ll tell me more about yourself in return -- I’d like to hear about your work, and about who you are when you’re not working. Do you plan to be a chauffeur all your life? Or do you see your work now as a stopping-off point to something nearer to your heart? _

_Your friend,  
Miles_

Tom folded the pages carefully and returned them to their envelope, then tucked the envelope back inside his jacket, where it could rest over the slightly-elevated beating of his heart.


	2. Branson to Miles (Letter Two)

On Monday morning, when he usually penned a letter to his mother, Tom sat down to complete his reply.

_16 April 1914  
Downton Abbey, Grantham_

_Dear Miles,_

_The arrival of your letter has spurred me to complete my own. You should know this is the fourth such attempt. This time I will force myself to simply write until I come to a stop and post the damn thing without re-reading. Otherwise, I fear it will be consigned in frustration to the stove._

_I’ve never written a letter like this before, and I’m not quite sure how to go about it. I miss you. I think you should know that. I don’t make a habit of kissing guests of Lord Grantham, or anyone else for that matter. You should also know that. You’ve taken me by surprise, Miles. I admit I am still not sure what to make of it, but know I miss you. That seems important to say. So there. I’ve said it._

_I wish I could give you a firm answer about visiting Manchester. I do want to. But t could put us both in a vulnerable position regarding our employment (surely you know over here such passion between men is against the law? Is it the same in America?). I want to accept. Wish, in fact, that I had gone to the station this morning and purchased a ticket and come to find you! But my responsibilities to people beyond myself make me hesitate. So I ask you for patience._

_Since I can’t give you the answer I know you were hoping for concerning a visit, I’ll answer your questions about my life instead. You asked whether I planned to stay in my position or look for work elsewhere. There was a time when I considered becoming a journalist, but now, after so many years working with automobiles I sometimes dream of setting up shop on my own, like my Uncle Rob. My situation is a bit delicate right now, given Ireland’s relationship within the empire. I have strong sympathies with the Republican cause, but I keep a low profile so my family doesn’t become a target (or, I confess, myself). On the other side, to set up shop here in England, particularly in Yorkshire, would draw a different kind of unwelcome attention. My religious affiliations, alone, have been enough to make some of the others at Downton suspicious of me. So for now, I stay here._

_Do you imagine returning to Chicago, or do you see yourself making England home more permanently?_

_I would enjoy the Egyptology and natural history exhibits very much! I haven’t had the chance to visit museums here in England, though I remember one or two back home with pleasure. I am not one for going out on the town, particularly, so I won’t miss the nightclubs of London. I prefer a more private life. You may have noticed during your time at Downton that Thomas Barrow, one of the footmen, has a certain interest in men (at least wealthy, well-positioned ones). It’s a distasteful business, though he is careful never to be caught directly, and his behavior makes my own situation even more delicate than it would be otherwise._

_It would be nice to hear more about the classes you teach, your dreams for the future, the sights you imagine showing me if I am to come to Manchester. In short, most everything about you. I’ve been regretting since you stepped on that damn train the opportunities for conversation that we let pass by. There are moments when I’m sorry I didn’t spend every moment you were at Downton haunting about waiting for the chance to catch you alone and kiss you, as I longed to do from the first._

_It is a peculiar experience for me, to be so preoccupied by my need to know the details of another person’s life. I hope you will indulge my curiosity._

_Your friend,  
Tom_

_P.S. Of course I share your feeling that after kisses like ours, anything but “Tom” would be an unnecessary formality. T._

_P.P.S. Last night, I had a dream in which we were trapped in the Oldsmobile in another rainstorm, and there was more kissing and touching like on Thursday last. I was disappointed to wake up and remember you were no longer here. T._

Tom sealed the letter before he could have second thoughts about the final postscript, and propped the letter on the base of his oil lamp, to be posted in the morning. He closed his eyes and sent up a prayer to whomever might be listening that he knew what he was doing -- or at least, barring that, that listening to his heart wouldn’t get him into as much trouble as he feared it would.


	3. Miles to Branson (Letter Three)

Miles’ response to Tom’s letter arrived several days later, and Tom’s heart thrilled at the sight. If Carson had taken note of the sudden influx of post from Manchester, he did not see fit to remark upon it, and the letter was simply left at Tom’s usual place at the table, along with an envelope addressed in his sister Eve’s hand.

_18 April 1914_

__41-C Sparrow Close, Manchester_ _

_A dream! -- How could you be so cruel, Tom, as to mention my appearance in your dream, but neglect to give details. I assure you my landlady doesn’t steam open the post, and your (our?) secrets are safe -- so spill the beans!_

_No dream-Tom has visited me in my sleep yet (perhaps he couldn’t get past the odious Thomas? And where the hell does he get off stealing your name I’d like to know?). Tom is much in my waking thoughts, however. I’ve been walking through the city this week, imagining where I might take you. The museum, as we discussed, and perhaps the natatorium (do you swim? growing up on the shore of Lake Michigan, I tend to take the skill for granted, though I realize not everyone enjoys the sport). Mostly, I long for privacy which will be somewhat difficult to find. Is there any chance you’d be able to drive up in the Oldsmobile? -- I suppose not. It was such a delicious few stolen minutes at the station, closed off from the rest of the world by the rain, with nothing to distract from the taste of you against my tongue, and the warmth of you under my hands. I find myself recalling the details at distinctly awkward moments and have to force myself to think, instead, of my old schoolmaster, Mr. Tynsdale, drilling us in Latin grammar._

_In short -- details please?_

_You asked about Chicago, and whether I plan to return. To be perfectly frank, I put only the barest thought into accepting this post in the first place -- simply to get away from my father’s plans for my life -- but now that I’m here I find it a stimulating environment in which to work. And there’s no one back in America waiting for me to return -- you didn’t ask, but I imagine you want to know -- I assure you! No American heiress waiting in the wings with my mother’s lapis lazuli on her finger, or University friend keeping watch at his window._

_I like the boys and men I work with here, and though I never saw myself as a teacher I’m beginning to enjoy myself, and bar the tedious board meetings I’m mostly left to my own devices. Oh, at some point I imagine there’ll be a blow-up over something or another that I do -- I’ve already been to a few union meetings on the quiet -- but I plan to cross that bridge (or burn it) when I get there._

_Manchester reminds me of Chicago in a lot of ways -- industry, industry, industry! But with cultural and political activity wherever you look. The woman suffrage activists, the communists, and labour leaders all lecture regularly, as well as members of the scientific and arts societies. I attend as many public lectures as I have time & energy for, though there are evenings when I do prefer to stay at home (like tonight) and sit by the fire in the sitting room in order to read or write. I recently purchased a second-hand copy of E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View. I disliked his Where Angels Fear to Tread when I read it three years ago and never tried another, but a very enthusiastic young bookseller in crooked spectacles and a pea green cardigan pressed this one into my hands on Saturday, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I wasn’t a fan. What luck! Room is much better, and I (like Lucy) find myself quite swept away by George (who, in my mind’s eye, bears a startling resemblance to you). _

_I’ve stolen this time to write you mid-day, before the afternoon post goes out, but now a meeting calls. Do write soon -- with details!_

_Your friend,  
Miles_

Tom smoothed his grease-stained fingers across the blue ink on the pages, then carefully folded the letter back into its envelope and slipped it into the front pocket of his coveralls, before going back to cleaning the wood paneling on the Rolls-Royce. A bubble of pleasure was lodged in his throat, threatening to burst and spread liquid warmth throughout his body. _Details please?_ He felt he could provide some details. As soon as the privacy of the evening closed in around Downton, and he could sit down at the tiny writing desk in his room and put his thoughts into words.


	4. Branson to Miles (Letter Four)

_19 April 1914_

__Downton Abbey, Grantham_ _

_Dear Miles,_

_No, I haven’t read Room With a View. I’ll look forward to hearing more about George, whom you feel bears some resemblance to me. I find it difficult to believe that a dun-haired Irishman with a squashy nose could play the Romantic Hero in any work of English literature. And without even reading the work that I cannot see you playing the part of anyone named Lucy (that could be because the only Lucy I’ve ever known was a small child of six with plaits the color of carrots!). I don't think skirts would suit you._

_The dream I told you about in my previous letter has turned into a recurring event. I’d be right pleased if it wasn’t for the fact it makes me miss you even more with each repetition. Because dream-Miles can’t hope to compete with the flesh-and-blood Miles. You asked for more detail, though. I am no poet, but here it is in plain language: We are in the front seat of the Oldsmobile, as we were at the station, only the location is remote. Nowhere in particular, just that I know no one will stumble upon us. Safe. And the windows have fogged over from the rain, cocooning us inside. It’s always warm, and we are wearing very few clothes. I can feel your hands warm on my back, my neck, my chest, my belly, your legs wrapped around my hips, holding me close, grinding down, creating friction and pressure in just the right places._

Tom paused, for a moment in the pool of lamplight at his small table. Across the room Lynch was reading the morning’s paper propped up against his headboard, and Tom felt, somehow, that Amos might be able to feel the impropriety of the words he was writing in the very air of their quarters. But no. Lynch simply shuffled the paper and muttered something about the racing tables. Tom made a non-committal noise and turned back to the task of trying to convey to Miles the tangle of emotions welling up in his breast.

_Have you ever been with someone that way? I’m a little shy, Miles, to admit that I haven’t. I don’t know why I’m telling you, except I feel you ought to know -- I want you to know. I’ve kissed girls before -- two that I remember -- and one boy -- I remember him more vividly. Ian MacIntosh, behind his father’s butchery, when I was a lad of fifteen. He ran away straight after, and we never spoke of it. Though I think he wanted to, again, and maybe more. But I left soon after, for service, and we never had the chance._

_I’ve been wanting to see you, naked, feel you under my hands, since that first day, maybe since the first moment? -- I didn’t know it then -- I do now. I dreamed of you, even before you left Downton, did I tell you? The night after you found me in the garage. I’d wondered, before, whether you were looking at me with interest -- I’ve felt the gaze of interested men before -- but I think it was then I began to realize (hope?) there was something more than idle interest there. For you, and for me. And that night I dreamed about stopping to pick you up on the roadside, but instead of helping you to the car I dropped to my knees and you pulled me into an embrace -- all wet warmth of mouth and tongue and the grip of hands. I woke, soon after, and -- well, you can imagine the rest. I wished you were there._

_Tonight, I’ll fall asleep thinking of you,  
Tom_


	5. Miles to Branson (Letter Five)

To which Miles responded:

_20 April 1914  
41-C Sparrow Close, Manchester_

_Your letter, Tom, which arrived in the afternoon post (and was waiting for me on the hall table when I came in for supper) compelled me to set aside all other plans for the evening and sit down straightaway to write you in return._

_Damn it, man! You’ve nearly driven me to buy a ticket to Grantham, march straight into that garage of yours, and finish what we started. I won’t -- but Goddamn I want to. As if I needed anything more feverish than my own memories to distract me from writing up the monthly reports for our London office, now I have an all-too-clear picture of you, naked (?), in bed, dreaming of us -- together!_

_You ask have I been with someone before, and the answer is yes -- though don’t imagine for a moment I think less of you for your own lack of experience. Mine was a schoolboy crush which developed -- during our second year at the University -- into something physical, though neither of us was man enough to admit it in so many words. We shared rooms near the campus, and used to slip into bed together in the cold winter months -- then the warm months as well -- and touch each other. It was a friendly sort of thing, but he eventually started seeing a co-ed in the fall of our Junior year, and the physical side of things ended. I didn’t admit to myself until many months after how much it had meant to me, and how much I missed him when he was gone._

_I’ve finished the Forster and found it an altogether splendid read, so enclose it with this letter. I refuse to accept your own self-description as I think you’d make a quite exceptional George._

_Falling asleep thinking of you,  
Miles_


	6. Branson, Miles, Branson (Letters Six, Seven, Eight)

After that, letters flew thick and fast -- two or three per week each way -- along the railway line between Grantham and Manchester. In the top drawer of Tom’s bedside table, the envelopes with their precious folded letters accumulated in a tidy bundle. He had, without thinking consciously about it, adopted the habit of carrying the most recent missive around in a pocket, easily accessible, until the subsequent letter arrived and the previous pages could be retired to the bedside. After dinner, on the evenings when he wasn’t occupied writing, Tom would pull out the stack and read through them before snuffing his lamp and drifting off to sleep. If Lynch noticed, he said nothing.

They wrote of literature, politics, personal history and family relations. Miles complained about his father’s business-like communications; Branson told Miles about his sister Francis’s well-received recitation of “The Hosting of the Sidhe” at Derry’s city-wide rhetoric competition. Tom read _A Room With a View_ and agreed with Miles that Lucy had done well choosing George over Cecil -- while blushing, quietly and persistently, at the thought that Miles had likened Tom to such a dashing and unconventional hero.

At some point soon after that, he had a dream about kissing Miles in Lucy’s field of violets, about sinking down into the grass in a tangle of limbs. He woke up hard and wanting.

After finishing the Forster, Tom fretted for nearly a week over what to send Miles in return -- nothing in his own small library was quite so evocative -- before wrapping his well-thumbed copy of D. P. Moran’s _The Philosophy of Irish Ireland_ up in brown butcher paper and sending it off.

 _I can’t hope to compete with Forster’s prose_ , he wrote in the enclosed letter, _and I doubt Moran will provoke your imagination in quite the same fashion as George and Lucy did mine -- but as you’ve expressed an interest in the political situation in Ireland, I thought you might find this useful. He’s an influential voice in the movement these days, though I hasten to say I myself cannot speak but a few words of Gaelic and wouldn’t be caught dead hurling -- I much prefer rugby (and yes, I can swim)._

By the following evening’s post, Miles had responded:

_Your gift sits majestically on my bedside, its self-satisfaction and sense political urgency seeping out the spine. I take Moran’s point about the importance of a unified language, but as an American, perhaps, question his emphasis on shared Catholicism and culture -- in my own experience, a person can feel national spirit even without faith. And what do you make of his distinction between Irish asceticism and socialism?_

Followed by:

_While I appreciate the book, I admit that one of its chief pleasures is the fact it’s yours \-- or was yours and is now mine. I imagine its ink and glue scent carry traces of engine grease and leather polish. When I lie in bed at night I close my eyes and try to conjure up that morning in the garage when you refused to catch my eye as I poked and prodded after the barest details of your life. Did you purposefully choose the angle at which to bend over the Rolls which would give me the best view of your behind? You seemed oblivious at the time, but now I wonder. I think what it would have been like -- how you would have responded -- if I’d have slid off that barrel and come up behind you to pull your backside against me, hands firm on your hips. Would you have pushed yourself back against me? Gasped? Moaned? Or simply jerked away in anxious alarm? In my imaginings, you let me push you up against the polished wood of the car door and slide my hands under that truly distracting coverall, under which I like to think you wear not a stitch of clothing._

Tom had to stop reading at that point, given that he was devouring the pages of cramped blue handwriting behind the wheel of the Oldsmobile as he waited for Sybil to finish her shopping. He thought surely the flush on his face would be visible to every pedestrian the length of the Grantham high street.

 _Have decided I am a coward to let fear keep us apart any longer_ , he wrote to Miles that evening. _This coming Monday is not available since his Lordship is entertaining guests who will need to be delivered to the station on Monday morning, but in a fortnight I should be free to take the 7:14 and be in Manchester by half past 10. I will be able to stay until the 6:24 train, which will bring me back to Grantham in time for the three mile walk back before the evening fully slips away._

_I know we will have precious little solitude, but is it too much to hope we might find somewhere in that city of yours some small amount of privacy in which to explore one another more intimately?_


	7. Miles to Branson (Letter Nine)

Miles’ response was uncharacteristically short:

_I can taste it -- Tom! -- so close! I will be counting down the days, I hope you understand, until I will be able to hold you in my arms again and take up where we left off. I will need to resist mightily the urge to lock you away and keep you to myself, neglecting my duties as host to show you a good time around town. Or do you, also, feel that “a good time” might constitute spending all the hours we have together in various states of undress? If so, I will do what I can to provide us opportunity -- I have a few ideas in mind!_

_More soon,  
Miles_

Tom’s hands trembled slightly as he folded sheet of steno paper on which Miles had scrawled his -- invitation? summons? The past three and a half weeks had felt magical, protected. As long as Miles was safe in Manchester, separated from Downton Abbey by close to one hundred miles and a railway journey of some three hours he could pretend to himself that their love affair would be forever safe and secret. If they were never together, they could never slip up, never be seen. There were the letters, in which they had become increasingly, carelessly, recklessly, passionate -- but letters were just that: letters. And could be denied, or burned, or weaseled out of. A kiss witnessed was a harder thing to shake, an invitation to violence if stolen in the wrong place at the wrong time. _There’s Ma to think of, and Anne and Eve and Fran_ , he thought, tucking the letter into his shirt, as had become his habit, where it could rest over his heart. _Think what they’d say if they ever found out -- and what shame they’d suffer from others if you were to end up in jail for this._

It had always worked before, this internal call to duty over desire. But then, he'd always been called back long before words -- or even kisses -- had been exchanged. It felt inevitable now -- he _wanted_ it to feel inevitable, to carry him away like a steam train rolling forward across the downs. He’d made his choice the moment he’d written to Miles “I am a coward to let fear keep us apart any longer …”

Really, he admitted to himself, he’d made his choice the moment he’d put Miles’ hand back on his thigh on the drive to Grantham station. It had been an undeniable act of desire, an acknowledgement of the spark between them that, until that moment, he could have let kindle and die without fanning the flames.

But he had. And had known at the time -- though he’d refused to do more than glance at it -- that he was saying _yes_ to this: _yes_ to desire, _yes_ to the feel of Miles’ skin under his palms, _yes_ to the taste of Miles’ tongue and lips, _yes_ to the possibility of more. Yes to the possibility that they could be caught and punished, yes nonetheless because -- for the first time since he’d been old enough to realize the full weight of consequence for acting on his desires -- the risk seemed worth it.

_Why?_ He wondered to himself that afternoon, as he was driving Lady Crawley and Lady Edith into town. _Why Miles?_  He asked himself, not for the first time since that day on the verge. That moment when he'd had the first inklings that Thaddeus Miles was in a class by himself as far as Tom Branson was concerned. He had numerous reasons for this, of course. Cataloged in minute detail: The way Miles tilted his head when he listened to something he felt was important; the line of Miles’ inner wrist as he reached out to steady himself on Tom’s arm; the compact weight of him against the taller man’s hip; the way Miles’ brown hair curled around his ear and occasionally got caught in the stem of his thick spectacles. Yet was nothing so simple as an algebraic equation: the attraction he felt was more than a sum of all such disparate parts. He just _knew_ , in the end. And realized, after the fact, that somehow it had been time: that he’d been waiting for this. In a way, ever since Ian-next-door had run away, all those years ago, and left Tom to wrestle alone with the revelation that someone else’s lips could taste so sweet and so sour and so utterly, utterly seductive. Waiting for Miles.

Waiting for the right person to come along and woo him out of his self-imposed solitude. Make him care enough to be brave.


	8. Branson to Miles (Letter Ten)

Tom carried the letter against his skin for two days before a window of opportunity opened up during which he was able to write a response.

_14 May 1914  
Downton Abbey, Grantham_

_Oh Miles,_

_I admit I’m scared. About coming to Manchester. I suppose you’ll say it isn’t bravery if you aren’t scared. So here I am, being brave: I want you. I think of you, every moment, of every day, and of those stolen kisses we shared. And yes, I want more. _

_You’ll ask for more details. So here they are. Here is what I wish could happen: That I could tumble out onto the station platform into your waiting arms. That we could make our way, hand in hand, back to your rooms -- ignoring the reality of land-lady and fellow tenants. I’ve never been with a person, sexually, in a room before._

_Is your wallpaper hideous? Is there a needlepoint on the wall? I imagine there is, sometimes. I think about your writing-desk in the corner, by the window, as you told me. Overlooking that alleyway and its dustbins. I imagine rich morning sunlight coming through the window. With the door closed and locked against the outside world, we could undress one another with unhurried attention. I want to memorize every blue vein beneath your skin! And kiss each other all the while. I want to see your eyes. You see me, when you look at me. I want to learn to see you, too._

_I imagine your bed. Imagine pressing myself against your hips and moving you, bodily, back across the room, encouraging you with kisses. Until I can push you down against the rough wool of the spread, the cool cotton of the pillowcases -- pillows that smell of your skin, warm and brash, soft and unyielding all at once. I imagine pressing myself down upon you, fingers intertwining with yours, as I hold you in place and explore you with lips and tongue for as long as I please._

_You can imagine how worked up I am now, thinking of you this way. Does writing me do the same to you? All day long, I feel the letters you write burning against me, in the inner pocket of my coat, or beneath the cloth of my undershirt. There are moments when the sensation prickles so strongly against my skin that I must recite a Hail Mary once or twice, then think of my Uncle Robbie’s face, in order to discipline my unruly thoughts and bring myself under control._

_Then, in the evening, I take a letter from the growing pile of envelopes in my bureau and read them by lamplight as my limbs grow heavy with sleep. Sometimes -- I blush to say it, and yet expect you already know! -- I slip a hand beneath the sheets, imagining the hand touching me is you. I’ve touched other men-- twice -- but never with much tenderness or understanding, and have only been touched once in return. I cannot say it was -- it was welcome at the time. But seems a pale shadow now, in contrast to what you stirred within me as we exchanged kisses, more or less chastely, in the Oldsmobile._

_Perhaps you should burn this letter. I’ve been rash in my declarations of intent … but if your damn land-lady has perfected the art of steaming open incoming mail, I suppose we’re already lost._

_With that I throw caution to the winds and say -- soon yours in all ways,  
Tom_

**Author's Note:**

> The museum Miles mentions in his first letter is the [Manchester Museum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Museum), opened to the public in 1888. 
> 
> My historical and geographical knowledge of Manchester is even sketchier than that of London, so I apologize for any geo-historical inaccuracies regarding the location of Miles’ rooming house, his social activities, etc.
> 
>  _Room With a View_ was first published in 1908. _Maurice_ , Forster’s romance about two young men who fall in love, was written around the time this fic is set but sadly remained unpublished until 1971.
> 
> Thanks to CrowGirl for finding me fun and historically-appropriate Irish Republican literature for Branson to send Miles. And for correcting me when I tried to have Tom’s sister recite Tennyson -- an act which might have gotten a family of Republicans in serious trouble! At her suggestion, Francis got to recite [](http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/the_hosting_of_the_sidhe.html>The%20Hosting%20of%20the%20Sidhe</a>%20by%20W.%20B.%20Yeats%20instead.</myroot></body></html>)


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